Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· Literature,
Principally Belletristic .
for alcoholism. Back in London seeking admittance to holy orders, Blacka·
more composed at least two short novels, one of which has been considered
significant enough in the development of that form to have been recently
included with other narratives in a collection entitled Four before Richardson
as an anticipation of the novel of character before Pamela. Luck at Last
or the Happy Unfortunate (London, 1723) was dedicated to "Mr. David
Bray, Merchant, of Virginia," and refers to Bray's father and mother and
the fact that the latter is the model for the noble Lady Gratiana of the
story. The character named is in several respects an anticipation of the
lovely plantation mistress of the fiction of a century or more later, and
the sentimental hero who marries her daughter Silvia fits quite well the
recorded physical and moral character of David Bray (1699-1731) him·
self. The modern editor of this piece insists on its "pervasive sense of
realism" achieved through the detailed description of servants and coaches
and billiard tables and bowling greens Blackamore may have seen in Williamsburg
or when he visited William Byrd II at Westover.
A little earlier, Blackamore had published a trilogy entitled The P erfidious
Brethren, or, The Religious Triumvirate. Display'd in Three Ecclesiastical
Novels . . . (London, 1720), dedicated in a long letter to the
author's former protector and constant friend Governor Spotswood of Virginia.
The wording reflects the Spotswood-Commissary Blair controversy,
and in the third exemplum "The Cloven-Foot, or the Anabaptist Display'd,"
Blackamore sets his story in the renowned city of Augusta near a
famous college. The villain of the piece, Whiskero, may possibly be a
caricature of the author's old enemy James Blair. In his letters Blackamore
hints that he returned to Britain with certain writings already partially
completed which might cause a stir in Virginia. If it could be proved that
any one of the little novels was written in Williamsburg, one would be
able to move back the date of the so-called first American novel by half a
century,211 for these two novels are closer to Virginia in authorship and
perhaps in depiction of its society than are the Virginia settings and characters
in DeFoe's Moll Flanders.
A Georgian, Thomas Stephens, rebellious and to some extent scapegrace
son of the Trustees' William Stephens who wrote so much officially of that
colony, had by 1759 published in London a first and second edition of
The Castle Builders, or, the History of William Stephens, of the Isle of
Wight, Esq,. late deceased, A Political Novel . . . . The younger Stephens
had sided with Tailfer and other dissident planters in their protests and
accusations against the Trustees. The novel, dedicated to "Mrs. Susannah
and Mrs. Ann Stephens," thanks them for giving him access to their late
uncle's papers which have been the basis for their narrative. The Castle
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